I didn’t mean to become a writer. It wasn’t what I pictured for myself as a career when I was a kid.
There were signs though. Like the life story I kept attempting to write. I’d get 3 or 4 pages in and give up, over and over again, unable to continue. It usually started, “It was a rainy, grey Saturday morning when I was born.”
I did become a writer, though, first as a journalist at a weekly newspaper in a little town in Western North Carolina. And then in almost every subsequent job.
Most of what I wrote wasn’t about me, it was about school board meetings or profiles of interesting people in that tiny town, press releases about the latest happenings at the university at my next job, or stories about how the donations received by hospital foundation I later worked for helped people get the medical treatment they needed.
Through it all, the story I really wanted to tell was my own. I wanted to explore my life and why I felt the way I did about it. Why I responded to events the way I did. I wanted to understand what it all meant.
I tried, off and on, on my personal blog (joannabartlett.com), but usually didn’t feel brave enough to truly write what was going on.
When I did, there were repercussions. Two months after being back at work post-maternity leave from when my first child was born, my boss read a blog post in which I confessed I felt like I’d been mostly hiding in my office and staring out the window in a daze. He confronted me. Said he was concerned it’d make him look bad if his higher ups read my blog, too (blogs were cutting edge then and mine had been featured in our local daily newspaper and was fairly popular). I left that job.
Since then, writing about my truths has scared me, because I unfortunately learned the wrong lesson from that encounter. What I learned: be careful what you say or you’ll pay for it. The real lesson: Speak your truth. Some people won’t want to hear it, but it all works out in the end.
I’ve needed encouragement to tell my stories and the uncomfortable truths within them. Writing as a Way of Healing: How telling our stories transforms our lives by Louise DeSalvo has given me that encouragement.
I didn’t have any expectations when I began reading the book, but it’s part of the stack I’ve collected to learn more about using writing as a means of healing from past losses and pain.
I found it inspiring and comforting at the same time. It gave me permission to tell my stories, to write about my life and experience, even the hard parts. Especially the hard parts. Doing so isn’t self-indulgent or a form of navel gazing. It’s necessary to survival. It’s what’s needed to heal.
I appreciate that Louise DeSalvo also offers guidelines and cautions: how to structure a writing project, how to take care of yourself while you’re working through difficult memories, what to expect from the process. Having a heads up on what’s involved makes the experience easier.
There were times I found myself nodding along, remembering the experience of writing a (still unpublished) memoir about the tumultuous adolescent years I lived in Barbados. My lived experience of the writing process was similar to her explanation.
Writing as a way of healing is an expedition to be thoughtfully and carefully undertaken. It needs some planning and thought. It needs safe space in your life. But it’s a worthwhile venture and provide real healing and insight.
I’m grateful for having read Writing as a Way of Healing. It’s given me the permission, encouragement and guidance to continue on my own writing journey and to explore and share the truths of my experience.